DC Voucher

Department oF Education Studies

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after two years in the DC voucher program. It found that participation in the voucher program led to a statistically significant negative impact on math achievement for students overall, and this negative impact was greater after two years than after one year. K-5 Students, who made up a majority of the students in the program, suffered statistically significant negative impacts in both reading and math. There was no statistically significant impact on student or parent satisfaction or on parental involvement.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after one year in the DC voucher program. It found that participation in the voucher program led to a statistically significant negative impact on math achievement for students overall. K-5 Students, who made up a majority of the students in the program, suffered statistically significant negative impacts in both reading and math. There was no statistically significant impact on student or parent satisfaction or students' perception of safety.

This study looked at the demographics of the DC voucher program. It found that the majority of the schools participating in the program are religiously affiliated. It also found that the program fails to serve students from schools in need of improvement and those in the poorest of DC’s communities.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after four years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students participating in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after three years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in math test scores for students who participated in the program. The study found increased reading achievement for a subset of students (students from schools not in need of improvement and students who were already testing in the top two-thirds of the test-score distribution when they entered the program) but not for students from schools in need of improvement, which the program specifically targeted. Notably, the US Department of Education final study and prior two studies of the DC voucher found no statistically significant improvement in reading for students who were offered a voucher versus those who were not. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after two years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students who participated in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after one year in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students who participated in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

GAO Reports

The study looked at the administration of the DC voucher program and found significant weaknesses in administration and oversight. Among the problems the study identified: it failed to give prospective families enough information to make informed decisions, it did not provide effective oversight to voucher schools, its database was outdated and full of inaccuracies, it lacked financial accountability, and it failed to ensure voucher schools complied with accreditation standards.

The study looked at the administration of the DC voucher program and found it lacked accountability and was missing the systems, procedures, and internal controls necessary to implement the program effectively. Among its many problems: WSF provided parents incomplete and inaccurate information about voucher schools. The study also found that schools in the voucher program were of poor quality and some lacked even basic requirements such as certificates of occupancy.

The study found that from 2011-2016, the number of students applying to the DC voucher program increased, but the number of students actually using a voucher decreased. In 2016-17, one-third of the students already awarded vouchers did not use them and more than one-half of the new students receiving vouchers did not attend private school.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS

"A Washington Post review found that hundreds of students use their voucher dollars to attend schools that are unaccredited or are in unconventional settings, such as a family-run K-12 school operating out of a storefront, a Nation of Islam school based in a converted Deanwood residence, and a school built around the philosophy of a Bulgarian psychotherapist."

Academic Achievement

This study examined the impact of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program on student achievement for low‐income students in upper elementary and middle school who used a voucher to transfer from public to private schools during the first four years of the program. Overall, voucher students experienced an achievement loss in mathematics during their first year of attending a private school compared with matched students who remained in a public school.

This study evaluated the academic achievement of voucher recipients in the 2016-17 school year. It found that vouchers had no impact on student academic achievement. This finding was consistent regardless of how long the students had been in the program.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after one year in the DC voucher program. It found that participation in the voucher program led to a statistically significant negative impact on math achievement for students overall. K-5 Students, who made up a majority of the students in the program, suffered statistically significant negative impacts in both reading and math. There was no statistically significant impact on student or parent satisfaction or students' perception of safety.

This study concluded that voucher programs introduce risks, including: "increased school segregation; the loss of a common, secular educational experience; and the possibility that the flow of inexperienced young teachers filling the lower-paying jobs in private schools will dry up once the security and benefits offered to more experienced teachers in public schools disappear."

The study found that the voucher program had a negative effect on student achievement in both reading and math after its first two years. It also found that the program had a negative impact on integration in private schools.

Recent studies using rigorous research designs have found that students receiving vouchers in both Louisiana and Indiana performed worse in reading and math than similar students in public schools. In both programs, "[t]he magnitudes of the negative impacts were large."

This study looked at Ohio's EdChoice program and found that participation in the program had an "unambiguously negative" impact on "both reading and math (though more negative for mathematics than for reading)."

This study looked at students in Florida's tuition tax credit program and found that there were no gains in reading or math test scores, compared to students nationally. In fact, for the 2014-15 school year, the difference was -1.1 national percentile ranking points in reading and -0.9 national percentile ranking points in mathematics. This is consistent with findings from studies of the program in previous years.

The study compared students in the Milwaukee voucher program and students in Milwaukee public schools for grades 3-9 and found no significant achievement growth for reading or math between voucher and public school students for the first three years.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after four years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students participating in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after three years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in math test scores for students who participated in the program. The study found increased reading achievement for a subset of students (students from schools not in need of improvement and students who were already testing in the top two-thirds of the test-score distribution when they entered the program) but not for students from schools in need of improvement, which the program specifically targeted. Notably, the US Department of Education final study and prior two studies of the DC voucher found no statistically significant improvement in reading for students who were offered a voucher versus those who were not. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after two years in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students who participated in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after one year in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students who participated in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

The study found that, "after controlling for differences in minority status, student mobility and prior achievement, there are no statistically significant differences in overall achievement scores between students who have used a scholarship [voucher] throughout their academic career (i.e., kindergarten through sixth grade) and students in the two public school comparison groups." The study also found that voucher students were less likely to be African-American or Latino/a than their public school peers, that students who exited the program were more likely to be African American or Latino/a than were students who remained in the program, that the majority of voucher students were already attending a private school prior to receiving the voucher, and that

This study tracked the academic, social, psychological, and attainment outcomes for children enrolled in private schools between kindergarten and ninth grade. The study concluded that when it adjusted for sociodemographic factors, there were no advantages of private school education for students who had attended private school during those years. Additionally, there was also no evidence to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefited more from private school enrollment.

Students With Disabilities

The Committee found that Mississippi’s ESA program is ineffectively managed and comes at a cost to taxpayers. The program lacks accountability and oversight, fails to ensure that students with disabilities are receiving the services they need, and has cost the state nearly $725,000 in fiscal year 2018.

The report surveyed voucher programs across the county in conjunction with analyzing existing research and conducing focus groups and interviews with families. It found that private school voucher programs result in “critical and often misunderstood changes in protections for students with disabilities and their families,” under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as well as other federal nondiscrimination laws. In addition, it found that voucher programs often do not provide families of children with disabilities meaningful school choice and may deprive students with disabilities of an equitable education.

The report surveyed voucher programs across the country and concluded that overall, private school voucher programs lack consistency in their accountability mechanisms and do not provide sufficient information to the public. In particular, private school voucher programs fail to provide necessary or accurate information to parents of students with disabilities about the rights those students forfeit by enrolling at a private voucher school.

The report looked at voucher programs across the country and their affect on students with disabilities. It concluded that because the voucher programs do not provide students with protections under IDEA and other federal laws, students with disabilities are left vulnerable and without many civil rights protections.

The study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice voucher program concluded: "In sum, our five years of research on the MPCP [Milwaukee voucher program] suggests that students with disabilities are classified and served differently in the private and public education sectors in Milwaukee, and that the MPCP serves students with disabilities at about two-fifths to three-quarters the rate of MPS [Milwaukee public schools]."

The study looked at Ohio's voucher program, which exclusively serves students with autism, and found that the program excluded students with more severe disabilities, students unable to pay costs above the amount covered by the voucher, and students based on religion, "leaving more disadvantaged students in the public system." The study concluded that "it seems inevitable that the program will damage Ohio's public system."

CIVIL RIGHTS

The study found that private school vouchers threaten to increase school segregation. By looking at racial and ethnic demographics in voucher programs (where that information is available), the study found that "there is a risk for private school vouchers to increase school segregation, in particular by facilitating the movement of white students to disproportionately white private schools."

The study found that the voucher program had a negative impact on integration in private schools. It also found that the program had a negative affect on student achievement in both reading and math after its first two years.

The study found that Georgia's tuition tax credit program was funneling taxpayer dollars into private schools that were "condemn[ing] homosexuality on religious grounds; [p]unish[ing] gay students by excluding them from admission and scholarships or expelling and disciplining them because they are gay; [u]s[ing] textbooks and curricula that are harshly anti-gay -- some even comparing gays to rapists and murderers; and [e]xpel[ling] or disciplin[ing] students in some cases for simply tolerating homosexuality."

Waste, Fraud, & Abuse

This report was a follow-up to a 2016 report by the Auditor General of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Act (ESA) program. It found that many of the issues found during the 2016 performance audit persisted and that the Department of Education had not adequately monitored parents’ spending, reviewed expenses in a timely manner, or taken timely enforcement actions to address misspending. It found that in 2018, Arizona parents fraudulently spent $700,000 on banned items and services.

The Committee found that Mississippi’s ESA program is ineffectively managed and comes at a cost to taxpayers. The program lacks accountability and oversight, fails to ensure that students with disabilities are receiving the services they need, and has cost the state nearly $725,000 in fiscal year 2018.

The study looked at Pennsylvania's two tuition tax credit programs, the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program and the Educational Improvement Tax Credit. It concluded: "Despite over a billion dollars in public subsidies for private schools since the programs’ inceptions, there is no central reckoning of administrative or programmatic expenditures by either SOs or the private schools that voucher students attend." In particular, the study found severe accountability problems with both programs, most notably: they do not serve students in rural areas where there were virtually no private schools or scholarship organizations (SOs) present; they fund primarily religious schools, which are not required to be accredited or adhere to the same standards for curricula as public schools; they do not require the same testing requirements as public schools, making it impossible to gauge student achievement; and they do not require reporting by schools or SOs.

The study found that donors to state tuition tax credit programs can take advantage of both state tax credits and federal tax deductions, creating profits for many wealthy taxpayers: "For some high-income taxpayers, this dual benefit can turn a scholarship 'donation' into a profit-generating scheme where the total tax cut received significantly exceeds the size of the original donation."

The study looked at 25 voucher programs (20 traditional voucher and 5 education savings account programs) across the country and found that these voucher programs significantly complicated the receipt of federal funding for programs in public schools in those states. It found that voucher programs harmed students with disabilities by denying them their rights under IDEA, by failing to provide equitable services, and by providing IDEA services inconsistently across school districts. The study also found that voucher programs harmed students from low-income families because many private voucher schools failed to provide equitable Title I services to eligible students.

The study looked at the administration of the DC voucher program and found significant weaknesses in administration and oversight. Among the problems the study identified: it failed to give prospective families enough information to make informed decisions, it did not provide effective oversight to voucher schools, its database was outdated and full of inaccuracies, it lacked financial accountability, and it failed to ensure voucher schools complied with accreditation standards.

The study evaluated outcomes in student achievement, safety, and satisfaction after one year in the DC voucher program. It found no statistically significant improvement in reading or math test scores for students who participated in the program. It also found that students did not report an increase in perceptions of school satisfaction or safety.

Religious Schools

The study "show[s] that vouchers are now a dominant source of funding for many churches." In addition "voucher expansion causes significant declines in church donations and church spending on non-educational religious purposes. The meteoric growth of vouchers appears to offer financial stability for congregations while at the same time diminishing their religious activities."